Monday, November 09, 2009

Let The Right One In

Many months ago, DQ reader Carlos Anllo e-mailed and recommended "Let The Right One In", which he described as a "Swedish vampire movie."

I headed over to Rotten Tomatoes and saw that it was highly regarded, with a 98% positive rating as well as its 8.2 average. Those were both exceptionally high, and I was looking forward to seeing the film.

Six months passed. That happens a lot.

I watched it last week, though, and it was wonderful. It was like Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, except Jim was a vampire.

Okay, it wasn't really like that. Strangely, though, if Jim had been a twelve-year-old Swedish girl vampire, it would have been pretty close.

The phrase "vampire movie" can be very perjorative, but in this case, Let The Right One In is really only nominally a vampire movie--it's really a coming-of-age story about friendship and how difficult it is to be different. It's a very sensitive, delicate story, juxtaposed with the stunning violence of a vampire's life.

Yeah--I know that sounds messed up. And it is, but in a completely outstanding way. It's quite brilliant, and in addition, the cinematography is absolutely superb. I still remember dozens of images from the film, and that's very unusual for me, even after only a week.

Oh, and here's something you should probably know: the English language track is AWFUL. Seemingly, most of the voice actors for the English language track were previously employed doing Kung Fu movie translations. So I'd highly recommend listening to the original Swedish voices and reading subtitles instead.